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Swiss magazine "Die Weltwoche" degrades Romani people as the hardest of criminals

22 October 2012
1 minute read

The Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche has been targeted by a wave of criticism for publishing a series of articles on the controversial topic of crime committed by Romani people from Eastern Europe. The magazine is also facing criminal charges of racism, according to news server welt.de. The most recent issue of the magazine, with the subtitle “The Roma are Coming: Marauding Quests into Switzerland”, is also controversial because of ts cover, which depicts a Romani boy pointing a pistol straight at the viewer.

A total of three articles in the issue are contentious. The main one, called “They Come, They Steal, They Leave”, ascribes a “large share” of “rising criminal tourism” in Switzerland to Romani clans from Eastern Europe. The editors claim Romani people are also behind rising rates of street prostitution in Switzerland. Nevertheless, the magazine also says precise numbers on Romani crime do not exist because police distinguish only the state affiliations of detained suspects, not their ethnicity.

Die Weltwoche is facing criminal charges in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Commission against Racism also intends to involve itself in the case now. Critics charge Editor-in-Chief Roger Köppel with “degrading an entire ethnicity of between eight and 12 million people as the hardest of criminals.”

News server welt.de notes that this is not the first controversial issue Die Weltwoche has run in recent weeks. Recently the magazine also published an article on “the Greeks of Switzerland”, a tirade against “sloppy Mediterranean workers”, referring to the French-speaking Romands, as the francophone inhabitants of the western Swiss cantons call themselves. The article claimed they work less than other Swiss but earn more money.

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